Thursday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, RCP senior elections analyst Sean Trende joined Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth to digest the results of Tuesday’s elections. They also discussed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing her retirement, the continuing stalemate in Congress over government funding, and what Zohran Mamdani can actually accomplish as mayor of New York. You can listen to the show live each day at 11:00 a.m. on SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Channel 111 and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** The show opened with Sean Trende’s analysis of this week’s election results, which he characterized as “just a bloodbath for Republicans from the top of the ticket to the bottom.” “Trende usually writes nuanced pieces that don’t always join with the herd. If Sean says something was a wipeout, it was a wipeout,” Carl Cannon said. Trende also addressed the Supreme Court case about Trump’s authority to impose tariffs: “The best thing that could happen to Trump might be if the Supreme Court strikes down his tariffs and there’s a 30% reduction in prices overnight.” “The electorate these days is very fickle,” Tom Bevan added. “There’s a lot of anti-establishment, anti-incumbent sentiment-populism on both the right and left.” *** After that, around minute 13, Sean Trende — an expert in redistricting — commented on the passage of Proposition 50 in California, saying we’re probably trending toward states gerrymandering their congressional maps every two years. “State parties are going all out to maximize their party’s chances in the fall,” Trende said. “Especially if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act]. I think you’ll get an even more aggressive map out of Texas to try to counter what California did. That’s the world we live in now.” *** At minute 20, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she’s going home after nearly 40 years in the House, and called President Trump “the worst thing on the face of the earth”30 minutes into the show, the group discusses how many of his ambitious spending proposals Zohran Mamdani might be able to realistically deliver as New York City mayor. “Two things struck me about Mamdani’s victory speech,” commented Andrew Walworth. “One, this idea that competence and compassion are at odds, and somehow they’re going to be both competent and compassionate-that’s an interesting thought. What’s he talking about?” “The other part that jumps out, of course, is that ‘there’s no problem that government can’t solve,’ no problem too small or large. Anybody who subscribes to Reagan’s philosophy finds that a scary idea,” Walworth added. “Mamdani is setting himself up here in the same way Trump did,” Bevan said. “Mamdani’s basically made the same huge promises-no backing down, full speed ahead, no apologies. He’s set the bar very high for what he says he’s going to do. The question is, how fast can he do it-and how much can he actually do?” *** Finally, 40 minutes into the show, an update on the continuing stalemate in Congress over government funding. This partial shutdown is now officially the longest in U.S. history. Are there any signs of progress? “The polls show more Americans blame Republicans than Democrats-even though the Democrats shut the government down. So until that changes, maybe they’ll stay emboldened. But what could change it?” Cannon concluded. “Whatever their talking points say, they know they closed the government down. They know they’re asking essential workers to work without pay, going into the fifth week… Even if they won’t say it publicly.” “The reason the polls look that way is because that’s how the media has portrayed it,” Bevan said. “If it were the opposite, Democrats would be crying uncle right now. But that’s not the world we live in. We live in a world where mainstream media takes the Democrats’ side, repeats their narrative relentlessly, so why stop?” “But at some point, the merits of it matter. Some Democrats-when people start going hungry in their districts because of their votes-will come to their senses. I hope so, anyway,” Cannon said. *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
RealClearPolitics Videos